A Bottle of Storm Clouds by Eliza Victoria

Author:Eliza Victoria [Victoria, Eliza]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789719951636
Publisher: Flipside Publishing

Parallel

Christopher had officially run out of words to describe the day. Hot, scorching, blazing, sweltering. He had gotten tired of running through his mental thesaurus, the sun getting to his head, blinding him, the sky spotless, cloudless, except for that one merciless orb, the streets unusually bright, as though lit from underneath, the streets absorbing the heat and reflecting.

Well fuck, Christopher thought. It was as if the pavement were glaring at him, staring him down, as if it knew who he was, knew he wasn’t supposed to be there.

Ben arrived with a car Christopher didn’t recognize.

“Now where the hell did you get this?” Christopher asked.

“My own garage.”

Christopher did a double take. It felt as if his head were moving underwater, the air thick as mud. He could hardly breathe. He closed the door of the car and set the air conditioning to maximum.

“You’re crazy,” Christopher said.

“Don’t worry, I left a note.”

“You’re crazy.”

“He didn’t see me.”

“You didn’t see you.”

“He didn’t see me,” Ben insisted. “And besides, I left a note. Wormholes do work! High five Einstein!”

“You’re—” Christopher began, then gave up.

“He’d love it, trust me.”

“And if he called the police?”

“He wouldn’t,” Ben said, and clucked his tongue, annoyed. “Jesus, Chris. Why do you keep referring to them like that?”

Christopher didn’t say anything.

Ben had picked him up on Krus na Ligas, in front of the girls’ boarding house there, the best landmark to meet since the building was painted bright pink and was the tallest establishment in the area. Ben changed gears and drove into Teacher’s Village. Ben knew the turns and the streets; Christopher didn’t have to tell him. It was 2 p.m., siesta time. The streets were silent, empty.

“Everything looks the same,” Christopher said softly, watching the houses go by outside the car window.

“Maybe they have a different president.”

Christopher stared outside the window.

“You want me to turn on the radio?”

“No.” Christopher said.

They drove in silence for a while.

“Have you erased the message?”

“What?” Christopher said violently, turning on his seat, jolting Ben.

“The message,” Ben said after a moment. “On your answering machine?”

Christopher sighed. The shrink had told him to erase it. Belinda wanted him to erase it, said it would help him “move on.”

“I will never,” Christopher replied, but found he couldn’t finish the sentence.

“No, I mean, it’s cool,” Ben said. Damage control mode. “You know? If I were in your position, I thought I’d—”

Now Christopher looked at him curiously.

Ben refused to meet his gaze. “I thought I’d do the same thing.”

“I haven’t touched her room either,” Christopher said. “It still looks the same, since that night.”

Ben made a noncommittal sound.

“My shrink says it’s not helping me any,” Christopher continued. “I said, ‘Right back at ya.’”

Ben didn’t laugh.

“You know what really got Olive into Einstein and all these time theories?” Christopher asked. Ben barely reacted to the sound of Olive’s name, but Christopher felt him shrink away, heard a sharp intake of breath, and Christopher felt sorry for Olive again, sorry for himself, his whole life.

Suddenly the discussion didn’t feel worth pursuing.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.